


Poking Holes

by isphira



Series: Recovery [3]
Category: Deus Ex (Video Games), Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
Genre: Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Spoilers, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Injury Recovery, Jim has a long think about things, Not Beta Read, Post-Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Unreliable Narrator, is my jam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-29
Updated: 2020-01-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:01:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22458412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isphira/pseuds/isphira
Summary: A doctor visits and gives Jim the low-down, and afterwards, Jim is beginning to connect some dots. Especially where they concern a certain Adam Jensen.
Series: Recovery [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1612261
Comments: 3
Kudos: 22





	Poking Holes

His doctor enters the room while Jim is imagining Jensen looming in the hallway like the gargoyles he spots on the rooftops of Prague’s oldest buildings, still as stone and grimacing meanly. The thought makes him chuckle under his breath, but he pulls his focus to the slightly harried looking doctor, who is reading a chart as he walks through the door and only looks up when he stops next to the bed.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Miller, how are you feeling?” he asks as he pushes his glasses back up his nose. Jim adjusts himself to sit a little straighter in the bed and sighs heavily.

“Antsy, Doctor, I’d like to get out of here soon. Do you have good news for me?”

“Well, yes and no.” 

“Of course,” Jim scrubs at his face in frustration. He knows he came close to dying, can’t help but remember, but at the same time, he’s sick and tired of this place. Dr. Brooks flips to another page on the clipboard and explains quickly. 

“I’ll be honest, we are only seeing bits and pieces of what your body has gone through. The trauma happened so quickly, the only thing we are getting a look at is the aftermath. It’s extremely fortunate that you were given the antidote promptly, but that means we don’t have a full picture of what exactly is going on. 

“What we’ve been able to understand, from resources and eBook data given to my team, the Orchid is meant to cure DDS and glial tissue buildup in augmented people, but instead attacks and causes protein structures to form abnormally. I can’t even begin to tell you how terrible that is for the human body. Like I said, you were fortunate.” Brooks shakes his head in consternation.

Jim quickly yanks his brain away from remembering pictures in the reports of Rucker’s quick and painful demise, feeling a shiver down his spine. Doesn’t let himself think  _ that could have been me. _ Although he doesn’t recall enough of his high school biology class to comment, he does know one thing, “That’s all well and good, but I don’t have any augmentations. Why would the Orchid affect me at all?”

“Good question.” The white coat shifts as the doctor gives a lopsided shrug. “As far as we can tell, the poison targets the genetic structures of a body, meant to delete entire strands of DNA, specifically to stop rejection from occurring, but it’s incomplete, or flawed. Whether your augmented or not, every person has this gene, so it attacks indiscriminately. All we can do now is deal with the consequences. 

“The most difficult part of your recovery so far is managing the damage. As swiftly as the antidote was delivered, it was only a neutralizing agent, not a reversal. In the past few days we have been able to begin the healing process, but it’s going to be a long road before you’re back to full health again. Speaking of which, we need to discuss potential extended symptoms and treatment.”

Brooks lowers the clipboard to his side and sticks his other hand into his coat pocket. So far, Jim is getting the idea that these people have no idea how to go about fixing this mess, but it’s not like he does either. _Wonder where they got their research,_ the thought flits through his brain and makes a mental note before he focuses back on the doctor.

“So… like I said, protein is hugely important to our bodies, in charge of a host of functions, such as muscle structure, biochemical reactions in the body, sending signals to different areas, helps the immune system, even our hair. We need to monitor you closely for any signs of your body not handling any of its normal functions properly.

“You may be feeling more weak than usual, sugar might affect you more severely, your hormones might be out of balance, any of the physical trauma that has occurred may be slower to heal than normal, even the pH balance of your blood and stomach acid is a factor we need to keep an eye on in the next week or so.” The sound of his pocket secretary receiving a message interrupts his speech and he looks annoyed for a moment before switching the chart to his other hand and fishing it out. He reads it quickly and nods, meeting Jim’s eyes again. 

“Right, I have to go, but before I do, here’s what we’re looking at. We’ll keep doing regular blood work and we’ll keep you on a strict diet to monitor the introduction of new protein to your system. Be careful with sugars, as well. Let us know if you feel anything is wrong, and please don’t hesitate to call the nurse if there’s trouble. Do you have any questions?” At the shake of Jim’s head, Dr. Brooks says farewell and beats a hasty retreat.

Bloody hell, that was a lot of information thrown at him. So.  _ Mission report _ , he thinks to himself. His body is jacked, and he’s lucky to be alive. That’s more than he thought he would get when he’d been propped up against those kitchen cabinets, literally having to feel his body tear itself apart.

And then Jensen appearing with a cure and forcing it down his throat. When they get back to Prague, Jim is going to tear the man a new one for disobeying direct orders.

…

_ After  _ he thanks him for saving his life. Damn it all, Jim’s not a monster. He can admit he’s grateful to be alive. Doesn’t mean he can’t give him shit about it later.

Settling back into his bed, without the doctor to distract him (and nothing else better to do), he lets his breath fall into the familiar pattern he uses to focus on a target at the end of his scope. Lets the frayed edges of intel he’s gathered over the past few days float through his mind and twists them together. Wants to see if he can this pull this chaos into some kind of order.

The first and most obviously relevant thread, Jensen had the cure.  _ How the hell did he have the cure?  _ The Orchid is a biochemical weapon, designed to cure the world and doomed to destroy it. How could the only cure of a practically unknown poison have fallen into the hands of the one agent that could administer it in time to save his sorry ass? No one is that lucky, but Jensen seems to be the person that is always in the right place at the right time. A more paranoid man than Jim (Chang) could think Jensen is a master manipulator, a puppeteer holding all the strings. 

But he hadn’t been lying when he confessed that he should have trusted Jensen. His instincts are rarely wrong (bolstered by decades of military service and command experience), and these past 6 months with Jensen on his team have been enough to convince him that not only is he a helluva good agent, but a bloody good man to boot. 

A man he may have unknowingly sent on a suicide mission. G.A.R.M.

A sour feeling settles into the pit of his stomach. This is the one Op that sticks out as a bad job all around, too hastily thrown together, not enough preparation. They’d lost contact with Jensen for hours, before Chikane finally got a signal through. When he’d returned looking worn down, paler than normal and throwing thinly veiled accusations of betrayal, he’d known something terrible had happened. A secret training base, where they may have been manufacturing biological weapons… Jensen had been in the thick of it, he could have collected the data, then given it to the doctors. Could he have gotten the neutralizing agent there? It’s not out of the realm of possibility, Jim had noticed how thorough Jensen was when on a mission. Silent and curious, a lovely combination of traits in a master infiltrator. But Jim remembers the slight shake in those segmented fingers before he had hidden his hands, and has to swallow down sickly suspicion.  _ He’d be dead if he was exposed. Was there only one dose of the cure? Did he have to to use it on himself? _ The very idea makes his stomach roll painfully. _ He just found some eBooks, the research on it, simple as that,  _ he tells himself, futilely. The clues point to a reality Jim doesn’t want to confront right now, so he pulls his thoughts in a practical direction.

Jim had meant to follow up, but everything had gone to shit so quickly, there hadn’t been any time. His agent deserved better than that, and he sure as hell expected more from himself as a CO. He makes a mental note to approach this issue later and plucks a second thread.

According to Argento’s suspicions, Jensen has been here consistently for days. And from the glimpse he’s gotten so far, the man is still on high alert. He’s seen him relaxed in the past, when he’s talking to Argento in passing, bickering with Mac between mission briefs, even snacking on cereal at his desk. Just this afternoon, their banter was a relief to hear while the TV was worked on. But. That strange move he’d taken to avoid Argento’s playful hit, quicker than a blink, screamed primed and ready for response. 

Jim is not perfect, sometimes things slip through the cracks, but he knows this particular type of stress. The way the end of the mission doesn’t quite let go when it’s all said and done. It’s why he sees the usefulness of debriefs and paperwork. Troublesome and tedious and headache inducing though they are, they have a purpose. Besides providing a solid case, it can bring closure to the agents involved, lets them look critically at their actions and make sense of what happened in a new light.

He doubts Jensen has let go of a shred of this past few week’s hectic tension. Probably worrying at it like a dog with a bone. Eventually the tension is going to snap, and as his superior it's his job to see that his agent is okay in the aftermath. That starts with figuring out what the hell Jensen is  _ doing  _ here, and why he is avoiding Jim. Unfortunately, that isn’t going to happen without careful planning and preparation ( _ Operation Gargoyle, he’ll call it _ ), so he brings his mind hesitantly to the last thread.

It’s the most frayed, brittle and fragile. Any pressure to master this thought will destroy it utterly. Jim lies still, the moment before taking the shot, luring the idea in, patient for as long as it takes, and then it’s there, softly drifting in front of the cross hair.

There is a terrible truth to the world, and Adam knows it. 

He has almost no proof of this, only whispers in the darkest bits of his mind. Subconscious thoughts murmuring convenient coincidences and oily secrets. Where only the worst of his imaginings live. 

He sees the way the world is careening off a cliff at breakneck speed. No one looks into the why or how of the Aug Incident, just lets hope die screaming at the bitter edge of the world. The strange gaps in Jensen’s files, not even redacted, just, missing. Secret facilities full of shadow operatives and assassins. Picus News reporting lies and manipulation when he knows the truth, has seen it with his own eyes. Setups and mind games. Orders from on high that disregard him completely, neatly tied in bureaucratic bows. Corruption and racism backhandedly encouraged. The powerful become more so as the weak die slow painful deaths. Inklings and dregs, that’s all he has. That’s all he may ever have if he doesn’t approach this the right way.

Because he knows that Adam knows more, has seen the way he holds himself back, heard the strange echo and double meaning in his words. And Jim may not be ready to hear the truth, but now that he has let himself acknowledge his doubts, he’s not going to let them go until he has some answers. Adam’s not the only one too stubborn to let go.

**Author's Note:**

> I’m settling into Jim’s character nicely I think. It’s tough when we have so little interaction with him, but I like how he’s turning out so far. Hope you do too! And I’m finding I really enjoy unreliable-narrator-Jim too, someone give the poor man some answers already.
> 
> It may be weird that I am doing this in a series and not chapters, but I know myself. If I feel the pressure of a WIP, I’ll start clamming up. It’s something I have to improve about myself, I know, but at the moment, I’m really enjoying getting back in the saddle, especially when I’m so passionate about this story I have floating in my brain. So semi-standalone stories from me for now. I don’t have any long term plans, just a silly flower theme and two boys that really need to have a decent conversation. ;)
> 
> If anyone has any thoughts or criticisms, please feel free to reach out, I love feedback!!! Thanks for reading!!!


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